Page 102 of Golden Eagle

He did, his pupils dilating, his breath arresting one long moment before he started sucking in deep, panicked lungfuls again. He was locked in.

Moving slowly, Trina reached up and laid one hand on the side of his face, and the other on his throat. His skin was clammy, his pulse racing against her fingers. “I’m okay,” she said. “Not even a scratch. I mean, I’m out of shape – thank God I didn’t have to run that far – but I’m good. See? Come here, smell if you need to. No blood.”

And hedidsmell. He stepped in close and dropped his face into the side of her throat, scenting her. Touched her hair, her shoulders, her arms. Pulled back to rake his gaze over her. He was shaking. “Did it? Are you–”

“Fine. Totally fine. Let’s put the sharp teeth away, okay?”

“The – sharp–” He flicked his tongue over a fang, and his eyes widened. “Shit. I…” He hyperventilated some more, and Trina tightened her hand on his neck.

“It’s fine. It’s fine. Just take a sec, and dial it back.”

A few more hitched breaths, and then a deep one. Another. He blinked and his pupils started to shrink back toward regular size; the glow faded from them. That had been new; she’d thought she’d seen Nikita’s and Alexei’s flash in moments, but she’d never been staring at them like this when it happened; hadn’t known for sure that something ethereal and inhuman flared to life in their irises.

“That’s better,” she murmured, squeezing at his neck in regular pulses – pulses that his own pulse slowly matched. “You okay?”

He ducked his head, and nodded. “Yeah.” His voice was still rough, but no longer with a growl; with regular old shame. He rubbed a hand down his face. “Yeah. I’m…shit. Sorry, guys.”

No response.

Trina finally glanced toward the others in the room. They’d all clumped together, a line of slack-jawed mortals with wrinkled dress shirts and bad haircuts. At another moment, she would have laughed, and ribbed them about looking like cops out of a crappy made-for-TV movie.

But now, with Lanny still shivering beneath her hands, she felt the morning’s first curl of real dread. Romero, Delgado, and Abbot didn’t just look shocked, but truly frightened. Dazed, almost. It didn’t matter that none of them probably believed in the supernatural; they’d all seen what she’d just seen in Lanny: that there was something very, very different about him now.

“What the hell?” Abbot said, voice uncharacteristically faint.

“Go,” Trina whispered to Lanny, and gave him a gentle shove toward the door. She wanted him to go home. To get the hell out of the precinct and find Nikita or Jamie or anyone else in their pack to sit with him. Even Alexei, whose vampiric experience far surpassed Lanny’s own.

He let go of her reluctantly, and made a tiny sound almost like a whine. She had vastly underestimated the distress a vampire would feel for a mate in danger – though she shouldn’t, she thought with a mental headshake. She’d seen Nikita in Virginia.

“Go,” she said again, and found a reassuring smile for him. “I’m fine.”

He gave her a look that threatened to crack her shields, baleful as a stray dog, full of regret and worry. But then he did go, and Delgado and Romero followed a moment later, at a safe distance, practically creeping.

Go faster, she willed Lanny. He was in no state to try to laugh and shrug off what they’d just seen.

Abbot cleared his throat.

Trina pushed all extraneous thoughts away and turned to him. She was the one with the composure here, even if her fate was in his hands. “Will IAB be here soon, sir?” she asked.

He blinked in response to her tone, flat and professional.

“I’d be happy to give you a statement, first, if you’d like.”

He blinked a few more times. “What the hell’s with Webb?”

“Trust me, sir: you wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”

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